Category: ALA

Categories
ALA Library Boing Boing

Libraries go bOING

Boing BoingI am incredibly excited that we’re finally launching Library Boing Boing! From the ALA post:

On the one hand, Library Boing Boing is a collaboration between ALA and the fabulously amazing Boing Boing folks to highlight all of the great new things libraries are doing. The most visible result will be regular posts about those great new things on the Boing Boing site itself.

On the other hand, Library Boing Boing: The Group has its own goals to help happy mutants in local communities connect with their happy mutant librarians to do good, work together on our shared interests, and make the world more better.

What can you do? To start with, head on over to the petition to make us a formally recognized ALA Member Interest Group…we need 100 signatures to get in front of the ALA Committee on Organization. Then at ALA Midwinter, it will go before ALA Council for approval.

We’ve already started a Library Boing Boing group over on ALA Connect, so go join that. It’s where we’ll hash out our plans to take over the world figure out what we can do to promote libraries and generally make some awesome happen.

Boing Boing is one of the most popular websites in the world, and having the opportunity to work with them to connect people to libraries is just about the coolest thing ever. I’ve been lucky enough to be featured on Boing Boing four times (1,2,3,4), mostly because the overlap between what libraries and librarians are interested in (freedom of information, democratization of information, copyright, DRM, technology) and what Boing Boing is about is huge. This is a great match, and I can’t wait to get started.

So, as Jenny said on the announcement post:

Start dreaming big. What could a dedicated, motivated, inspired group of librarians do with both Boing Boing and their own local happy mutants? How can we spread Library Boing Boing goodness throughout the profession?

Thanks to Andrea Davis and Patrick Sweeney for co-convening this thing with me, and special thanks to Jenny Levine for the idea and the wrangling! If you’re coming to ALA Midwinter, we’ll have a meetup on Sunday night (location and time TBA), and we’ll have some swag of some type to help identify other Happy Mutants. Keep your eyes out, go sign the petition, join the Connect group, and be on the lookout for wonderful things!

Categories
ALA LITA Personal

Goin’ down to New Orleans

I leave today for ALA Annual 2011 conference in New Orleans. My schedule is a hot mess…I would normally throw it here on the blog, but it really wouldn’t do anyone any good. I’m triple-booked for most of the weekend, so I’m not even sure I’ll know where I am most times. The only guarantees are that I’ll be at LITA Happy Hour, the LITA Board meetings, and defending my crown at Battledecks.

However, if you’re there, come say hello! I’m looking forward to seeing friends and learning things. Not so much looking forward to hours of meetings, but that’s the price you pay for trying to fix things. 🙂

Hope to see you in NOLA! Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Categories
ALA Books Library Renewal Media

Library Renewal around the web

LFOP-Renewal Poster OrangeI haven’t blogged much about Library Renewal, a new library non-profit that I am involved with…but we’re about to hit ALA Annual, and a bunch of things are coming together online. It seemed like a good time to remind people where they can find us. Here’s a quick list, including the new Youtube channel:

Coming soon, a lot more…including the ability to donate to Library Renewal (and receive some awesome premiums for doing so) and a new web-based tool that I’m not allowed to talk about yet. Interesting things will be happening in the next few months. Keep an eye on us.

And if you are attending ALA Annual, make sure you carve out time to see our Beloved President of Library Renewal, Michael Porter, present You Mean Libraries Will Be Able To Deliver Electronic Content Better Than iTunes and Netflix? on Saturday, June 25, 2011 from 1:30pm – 3:30pm in Convention Center Rm 244.

Categories
3D Printing ALA LITA Top Tech Trends

3D printing video for Top Tech Trends

I was asked by the LITA Top Tech Trends committee to help them test out a new idea for TTT…having a Trendster talk about a single tech trend on video, and throwing it up on YouTube. I agreed, and the result (after a little editing on my part) came out really well. Take a look:

If this is the sort of thing you’d like to see more of from LITA, please…leave a comment! Let us know what you think.

Categories
ALA Gadgets presentation TechSource

Gadgets in the Library: A Practical Guide to Personal Electronics for Librarians

In the middle of April, I’ll be doing a set of two webinars for ALA TechSource on how to manage gadgets inside the library. I’ve done a lot of talks about the theory of gadgets, and why I think they are important for libraries, but this is the first time I’ve tried to put together some real practical day-to-day tips for how to deal with these things. Here’s the description from the registration page:

From the iPad to eReaders, gadgets are everywhere. As these personal electronic devices become more and more ubiquitous in everyday life, it’s essential that libraries are fluent in the language of these devices. Whether your library wants to make use of these items in its services or purchase them to lend out to patrons, this interactive workshop will give you the foundation you for bringing your library into the future through gadgets.

Session 1: Non-e-Reader Gadgets
Wednesday, April 13, 2011, 2:30pm – 4:00pm Eastern

This session will cover the following topics:
Personal Electronics are Personal
Operating Systems vs Devices
iOS & Android
Circulation & Policy

Session 2: E-Readers and More
Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 2:30pm – 4:00pm Eastern

This session will cover the following topics:
Types, differences, decisions
Amazon, Nook, Sony
Cataloging and Representation in Systems
Summary and Conclusions

The webinars aren’t free, unfortunately, but it’s a flat rate for both ($85), and if you want to gather your entire library together to watch, you can do so.

If you’re interested, please register…and if you have questions for me about what’s going to be covered, or you signed up but want to tell me exactly what you’d like me to cover, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Categories
ALA presentation Technology TechSource

Techsource Tech presentation

Here are the slides that I used for my portion of the TechSource webinar today…I’ll link to the archive of the presentation as soon as it’s available! Archive of the entire presentation now available…if you missed it, go take a look!

Categories
ALA presentation

TechSource ALA Midwinter Wrapup

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow! Join ALA Techsource in their annual Midwinter Wrapup webinar! Tom Peters, Kate Sheehan, myself, and Marshall Breeding will give our analysis of the new technologies and technological questions that emerged in the last 6 months. More information available over at the TechSource Blog.

1:30pm Central/2:30 Eastern Time! Come listen and participate.

Categories
ALA Books LITA Media presentation

My interview with Vernor Vinge

I was thrilled to be able to meet and talk with Dr. Vernor Vinge at ALA Midwinter 2011, and am incredibly happy with the way that our interview went. Here it is, in 2 parts, for those that missed it live.

Part One

Part Two

Categories
ALA Books Digital Culture LITA Personal presentation

CES and ALA Midwinter 2011

The next week or so for me is completely insane, as I’m attending both CES2011 and ALA Midwinter 2011, even though they actually overlap. I’ll be flying from Nashville to Las Vegas on Tuesday for CES, hopping from Vegas to San Diego on Friday for ALA Midwinter, and then taking the red-eye late on Monday night to get back to Nashville and then home early Tuesday morning.

Then I’m gonna sleep about 20 hours.

There are a lot of things I’m excited about for both trips…CES is a bazaar of tech, and I’m attending a number of exciting Press Conferences from Sony, Lenovo, ASUS, and other major tech companies. I’m going to be doing reporting on the trip over at Perpetual Beta, including (if the wifi holds up) some livestreaming. I will send a tweet out when I start a livestream, so if you are interested, follow me over at twitter and you’ll get the head’s up when I go live with anything.

At ALA Midwinter, there’s also a lot to be excited about. I have two favors to ask of anyone that happens to read this and will be in San Diego:

The first: if you are a LITA member, consider coming to the Saturday morning LITA Board of Directors meeting at 8:00am in the SDCC Room 11b. It’s early, and I don’t begrudge anyone their sleep, but if you want to see how LITA works, and help to make it better, come hang out with the Board for the morning.

The second is: Come see me stumble over my fanboy self while I interview Dr. Vernor Vinge, on Saturday in the SDCC at 1:30pm in room 29 A-D. Go to that link and leave me a question you’d like to see Dr. Vinge answer, check here and at LITABlog for a live stream of the interview, and help make this an awesome event for librarians everywhere. Dr. Vinge is a 4 time Hugo Award winner, and his writing has within it possible futures for information, libraries, and books that we should really pay attention to.

I hope to see a lot of friends as well…if you see me, please wave me down and say hello.

Categories
ALA Library Issues Media Personal Writing

Privacy and Freedom of Information in 21st-Century Libraries

CoverI’m really priviledged to be a part of the latest ALA TechSource Library Technology Report, Privacy and Freedom of Information in 21st-Century Libraries. When I was given the opportunity to contribute to an issue with Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Sarah Houghton-Jan, Barbara M. Jones and Eli Neiburger…well, I said yes.

I wrote the chapter entitled “Social Networking and the Library”, and the general thrust of the chapter can be seen in this excerpt:

The central tension between libraries and social networks is simple: a social network gains usefulness when you are identifiable (people know who you are) and you share information about yourself (people know what you like). Libraries have, for years, operated under the general guideline that both of those pieces of knowledge are no ones business but yours….Taken at face value, as they relate to social networks, library ethical policies can be interpreted as directly contradictory with…privacy statements. Libraries have chosen, at times, to value privacy over access to social networks when these are in conflict. If the privacy of the patron is compromised via social networks, one possible answer is to attempt to limit access to those networks, which flies in the face of open and free access to information.

If you’re interested in the topic of Freedom of Information and how difficult holding on to library’s traditional values becomes in the 21st century, this issue is a great read. Head on over to Techsource and pick it up.